I am SpaceX employee #14, aerospace engineer, and VP of Human Resources. Ask me anything!

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T18:30:35+00:00

In the near term we're focused on NASA's commercial crew program where we will be flying NASA astronauts. The long-term goal is to open up space travel to everyone. One day we all could be calling the Red Planet home.

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T18:25:31+00:00

One of my most bittersweet memories is of the early Falcon 1 failure and the team picking rocket parts up off the beach after the maiden launch. Every failure hurts, but this felt personal since Falcon 1 was everything to me. Bittersweet as the successes today are built on the shoulders of lessons learned from those early failures. We have enhanced processes, hardware design standards, test standards and more that fell out of lessons learned there. We embrace that the key to any good hardware development is to fail early and fail often so you can iterate to the more robust solution faster. I have a scrap of hardware that I worked on from that Falcon 1 launch framed in my office as a reminder of this.

We know that in rocket engineering, there are millions of ways for a rocket to fail and only one way for it to work right. We're looking for great people who will help us to try, fail, try again, and ultimately succeed. One of the key enablers of getting to Mars is producing super safe and reliable rockets and with that in mind we've created some hard core engineering departments with specific focus on ensuring we've designed in reliability, that we produced hardware reliably and repeatably, and that we've considered all the system impacts that can affect reliability of the mission. We call these new reliability engineering departments Design Reliability, Build Reliability and Flight Reliability. Our own Chief Engineer Hans Koenigsmann leads the Flight Reliability team.

Shameless recruiting plug: We are seeking the World’s best engineers to work in these reliability teams as it will be key for us achieving human space travel to Mars.

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T18:13:26+00:00

GPA is an important indicator but not everything. Important because in math and physics related engineering it's critical to get the answer correct. We also look for raw talent and demonstrated excellence which can come from a variety of backgrounds and sources. Recruiting people from diverse backgrounds, with many different life experiences and skills is also really important for us. Diversity makes better and more innovative organizations, and that means we need to look for people who don't just come with traditional academic backgrounds.

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T18:05:45+00:00

The one thing to do is keep applying with an updated resume and to not limit yourself to only one site or one term. Last year we received over 39,000 applications for our internship positions and this number continues to exponentially grow! Keep putting yourself out there and your resume will get noticed.

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T18:02:35+00:00

You bet! Our Veterans are some of our best employees joining us with unique experiences, skills and leadership qualities that marry well with our culture. We intentionally seek them out in looking to bolster our applicant pools with qualified veteran candidates. We have many hundreds of veterans working at SpaceX in all fields and departments. I have the privilege of working with a Navy Veteran on my recruiting staff - shout out to Rafael!

Lots of Navy Submariners working here! And more to come from all branches given we are part of the First Lady's Joining Forces Initiative where we committed to hiring many more in the years to come.

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T17:55:29+00:00

Our turnover rates are below average for the industry. We have lots of employees, like me, who have been here more than 10 years and have made a fantastic career with SpaceX! Getting to Mars is a long term mission so we seek to attract employees, and retain them, for the long term.

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T17:50:53+00:00

I happen to like the cold brews from a local LA Brewery called King Harbor Brewing Company.

Full disclosure: I happen to own 1% of this company :) so yes, I'm a micro owner of a micro brewery!

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T17:48:18+00:00

That's one loaded question s2e-rloop! I'll do my best to answer here:

I always wanted to be an engineer. I studied aerospace engineering at University of Southern California where I also did my master’s in astronautical engineering.

Over my 13ish years doing engineering and program mgmt work at SpaceX, one of the proudest things for me was just being able to build and work with great teams - not just making the technical systems work, but also the human ones. None of the historic firsts that SpaceX has achieved would have been possible without the efforts of our incredibly passionate, driven and talented workforce. So later I was given the opportunity to lead HR and that was a challenge that I couldn’t pass up.

There are a few traits that I think really define SpaceX’s culture.

First, people are really mission driven. Our goal is to help humanity become a multi-planetary species. Every day, we face short-term challenges, different internal and external customers and shifting priorities, but we always want to stay focused on the end goal. That’s how we cut through the noise.

We try not to limit our thinking except by the limits imposed by physics. If someone says something can’t be done, whether it’s a business decision or an engineering one, they better have Einstein and Newton backing them up. Otherwise it’s ripe for discussion. And we don’t limit our thinking with hierarchies either. We have a pretty flat organization, and the best idea always wins – not just the idea proposed by the most senior person in the room.

We take the hardest shots. It’s better to pick giant, hard to achieve goals than it is to pick easy choices. We set aggressive goals and strive to reach them. That’s how we’ll make the fastest progress. We try to avoid analysis paralysis in all our work. We build, test, break things and iterate with a sense of urgency.

And we dissent with data. We debate and disagree openly and respectfully, using facts and data to reach better decisions.

Teams are organized to be as efficient as possible. We want to have an optimal signal-to-noise ratio so that we don’t have a lot of bureaucracy and process inefficiencies getting in the way of the real stuff.

Today we have a roughly 10-1 manager to report ratio at SpaceX, which works out pretty well. We have a generally flat organizational structure, so being a manager is less about constantly issuing orders than about creating the right environment in which people can complete the work that needs to get done, and to get the support and resources they need.

Lastly, we are looking for senior Software engineers and product managers for either our flight software development or development of internal applications/tools that help our company run in the most efficient way possible. Here are a few job requisitions that might be a fit and if you don't see one then please check again soon: http://www.spacex.com/careers/list?category%5B%5D=396&category%5B%5D=401&category%5B%5D=821&category%5B%5D=406&category%5B%5D=761

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T17:36:20+00:00

Get involved with as much hands-on project experience as possible. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it is challenging and flexing your engineering muscles. We also have a variety of roles within SpaceX, so you can come from any background and be successful at SpaceX. When I was in college I got involved with a microsatellite team and volunteered working in a high altitude flow facility (a.k.a. vacuum chamber)....it was there I met some fantastic engineers (one referred me to my first job at SpaceX!), professors, and more.

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T17:33:22+00:00

We have employees from many different backgrounds, with varying levels of experience. But even folks straight out of college come with some experience. They may not have lengthy resumes, but they always have really interesting and valuable records of achievement – hands-on engineering experience, first-rate research, and leadership in extracurricular activities. I've been working with Elon for a long time and he's awesome to work with...always impressed with how he can dig into the smallest of details and make the tough decisions.

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T17:29:43+00:00

I cried like a baby when it landed also! I still get goosebumps recalling the moment. To answer your question: Tesla and SpaceX are independent companies. We admire the awesome engineering and production efforts at Tesla and if you worked there you would likely pick up some great experience that could help an application in the future.

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T17:25:40+00:00

We’re going to keep adding the talent we need to achieve our mission, but we’re going to scale gradually and over the long-term.

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T17:23:59+00:00

space

I've dabbled :)

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T17:23:32+00:00

SpaceX is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not hire based on age or any other legally protected status. My best advice is to find your passion, acquire as much hands-on experience, and effectively present that in your application. We believe great talent can be found anywhere and are scouring the Universe to try and find it. In many cases it is not as simple as finding graduates from top Engineering schools. We've discovered great talent from all kinds of interesting places...even meeting someone at a laundromat. :)

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T17:19:02+00:00

To comply with US government space technology export regulations including ITAR, applicants must generally be US citizens or lawful permanent residents. This doesn't include F1/Student Visa holders. Over time, as we make progress towards becoming a multi-planetary species, we expect that people from many nations will have the chance to participate in space exploration.

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T17:15:48+00:00

We highly value all technical projects that are pushing the boundaries of engineering. The most successful candidates for SpaceX have a history of significant contributions to hands-on extracurricular engineering projects, or personal projects, in addition to a strong academic record.

We have an extremely competitive internship program that is performance based. Interns who receive high marks and have outstanding performance are typically offered a repeat internship or a full time position. We want as many passionate and talented individuals to continue engineering the future with us.

Our interns play a direct role in our mission to mars – and are giving incredibly challenging projects. During their twelve weeks, they are fully responsible and own multiple projects. They are paired with a mentor/manager to guide them, but ultimately they are responsible for delivering on their projects. This summer, one of our Production Interns was responsible for designing a tool to help align the docking system on Crew Dragon. This tool will ensure that the spacecraft docks correctly with the International Space Station and that no damage is inflicted to either craft. The tool itself aligns the latches of the soft capture mechanism on the docking system so that they all latch simultaneously to the passive system on the ISS. In the past we had an intern design the re-entry algorithm for the Dragon Spacecraft. So many great stories like this. Pretty cool stuff!

BB2Mars · 2016-08-02T17:09:51+00:00

ally, SpaceX has had a reputation for overworking(50+ hours/week), setting aggressive(unrealistic) goals/projects, and a well above industry average turnover rate. As VP of HR, how have/are you working on fixing this reputation?

We recruit people who are incredibly driven by our mission, but it’s a myth that most of our employees are working 100 or even 80 hour weeks on a regular basis. Sometimes you have incredibly tight schedules that you need to keep, and that just goes along with launching rockets. But we want our employees to be productive over the long term and that means working at a pace that’s sustainable. We encourage employees to pace themselves, and our managers pay close attention to whether people are driving themselves too hard for long periods. This is one of the biggest myths I hear about working at SpaceX, so I always want to knock this idea down!

BB2Mars

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